In the latest installment of our Spotlight series, film scholar Racquel J. Gates unpacks Oscar Micheaux’s 1920 classic WITHIN OUR GATES, a landmark of American silent film that deploys stunning cinematic innovations to tell its story from a Black perspective.
Observations on Film Art No. 36
Ennio Morricone is perhaps the preeminent film composer of the last half century, an enormously influential artist whose iconic melodies and imaginative orchestrations grace some of the greatest films ever made. In this edition of Observations on Film Art, Profess...
The director of inventive indie hits like LOOPER and BRICK, Rian Johnson brought his unique sensibility to the multiplex with the 2017 blockbuster STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI. A passionate cinephile, he sat down with Alicia Malone to present a lineup of favorites that unsurprisingly reflect his fasc...
Founded in 2005 by pioneering nonfiction filmmaker Albert Maysles, the Harlem, New York City–based Maysles Documentary Center has fostered an incredible sense of community through its diverse, thought-provoking, and often challenging programming; classes that teach the fundamentals of documentary...
In this 2014 video essay, filmmaker Kogonada examines close-ups of hands in the films of Robert Bresson.
In this 2017 video essay, filmmakers Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramos (“Every Frame a Painting”) examine the style of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.
In the following introduction recorded in 2022, film scholar Racquel J. Gates unpacks how Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 masterpiece explores anxieties around technology and bids farewell to the silent era.
In this interview recorded in 2016, the Oscar-winning director of MOONLIGHT and IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK explores the intoxicating cinema of Wong Kar Wai.
With her radically anarchic Czechoslovak New Wave landmark DAISIES, director Věra Chytilová set out, in her own words, “to make a film that is aesthetically pleasing and interesting, yet [which] is an image of destruction,” one in which “the idea of ‘destruction’ is present in everything, in ever...
In the latest installment of our Spotlight series, Criterion curatorial director Ashley Clark introduces the British crime-film classic that made Bob Hoskins an instant star.
In this new video essay, filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe (78/52, LYNCH/OZ) delves into the dread-inducing mood and tone of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s modern horror classic CURE, deploying a dizzying range of cinematic references to unravel the film’s eerie magic.
Please be advised: this film contains gr...
With the indelibly disturbing nightmares HEREDITARY and MIDSOMMAR, Ari Aster has already established himself as one of twenty-first-century cinema’s most audacious auteurs. In this edition of Adventures in Moviegoing, Aster sits down to discuss the unforgettable films that have shaped his life an...
In this installment of our Spotlight series, critic and author Grady Hendrix examines the potent blend of emotional anguish and body horror that David Cronenberg tapped into for one of his most terrifying classics.
In the latest installment of our Spotlight series, critic Alicia Malone unpacks Ernst Lubitsch’s brilliant political satire, one of the most acclaimed comedies of all time.
One of the most influential science-fiction films of the 1950s, FORBIDDEN PLANET shaped the evolution of the genre for decades to come with its groundbreaking production design, special effects, and electronic score. In this edition of Secrets of the Hollywood Archives, Oscar-winning visual-effec...
One of the finest and most realistic war movies produced in 1940s Hollywood, TWELVE O’CLOCK HIGH portrays the harrowing experiences of a group of American flyers stationed in Britain during World War II. But how did the filmmakers achieve the exciting aerial shots of star Gregory Peck flying a B-...
In the following introduction recorded in 2022, Criterion curatorial director Ashley Clark explores the sly social critique and dizzying cinematic experimentation of writer-director-actor Wendell B. Harris Jr.’s lone feature to date, a sui generis masterpiece of American independent cinema.
This new conversation between critic and programmer Michael Koresky and Criterion web editor Andrew Chan, discussing the films in Queersighted: The Musical!, was recorded in 2022.
How did classic Hollywood’s special-effects artists create the extraordinary illusions that thrilled and delighted generations of moviegoers long before the advent of digital technology? In this new original series, visual-effects artist Craig Barron and sound designer Ben Burtt dig into the stud...
In 2009, Sean Baker (THE FLORIDA PROJECT, TANGERINE) sat down with the late Godfather of Gore himself, Herschell Gordon Lewis, to discuss his legendary career as an exploitation pioneer and creator of the splatter movie.
In the following introduction recorded in 2021, critic Imogen Sara Smith explores the seductive charm and subtle menace of René Clément’s gorgeous Patricia Highsmith adaptation, starring Alain Delon in his breakout role as the duplicitous Tom Ripley.
